Budget4All

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Budget4All is a Java desktop software intended to help you manage your personal or family budget in order to forecast your cashflow, in an easy but powerful way.

Incomes, expenses and evolution of cashflow:

Data is organized around the simple concept of "scenario", which is essentially a file containing a set of income/expense definitions that you specify according to your own needs. You may build as many scenarios as you want. In a scenario, you specify for each income/expense several properties, as the actual amount, the frequency, the starting and ending date, the annual growth if any, etc. These incomes and expenses will obviously impact your net CASHFLOW through time. It is the evolution of this cashflow through time that Budget4All displays as a red curve in the main window. A "starting" cash amount (as of "today") can be specified in a text box at the bottom of the screen. You can change easily the duration of the period displayed on the screen using the "time interval" combo box (e.g. 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, etc).

Inflation:

It is possible to specify an annual inflation rate for a scenario. It can be simple (e.g. 4% constant for each year) or complex (you specify the rate for each year, e.g. 3.5% for 2009, 5.3% for 2010, etc). The inflation is applied to every income/expense of the scenario on the first of January of every year, unless, for a specific item, you have specifically indicated that inflation does not affect theincome/expense when you created the definition (see the "add effect of inflation on top of annual growth" checkbox).

Scenario Analysis:

Budget4All offers a very useful analysis tool (menu Tools->Analysis) that displays graphically the relative distribution in % of incomes/expenses for a specific time interval. It is very handy to know what are your main incomes/expenses and what percentage they represent. You may discover for example that food represents 24% of all your expenses, which can help you to take appropriate financial decisions.

Data Exporting:

You can export all the scenario data to a web browser or a spreadsheet (so you are not locked in Budget4All !). Graphics can also be saved as PNG or JPG file (right-click on the picture to have access to the menu).

The best way to learn Budget4All is to try it ! All the modifications you do to a scenario are NOT SAVED into the file until you explicitly request to do so by using the "Scenario->Save" or "Scenario->Save As" menu.

How it works:

This application is all about BUDGET PLANNING : the key principle adopted by Budget4All is to take into consideration the FUTURE incomes/expenses expected. Consequently, this is not the right tool if you want to enter your past bills, to print checks, to know how your money has been spent for the past year, etc.

Data is organized around the simple concept of "scenario", which is essentially a file containing a set of income/expense definitions that you specify according to your own needs. You specify for each income/expense several properties, as the actual amount, the frequency, the starting and ending date, the annual growth if any, etc. .As the incomes and expenses occur through time, from "now" to 50 years later, the amount of net cash you own also varies and is represented as a red curve on the main window. A "starting" cash amount (as of "today") can be specified in a text box at the bottom of the screen. You can change easily the duration of the period displayed on the screen using the "time interval" combo box (e.g. 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, etc).

It is possible to specify an annual inflation rate for a scenario. It can be simple (e.g. 4% constant) or complex (you specify the rate for each year). The inflation is applied to every income/expense of the scenario on the first of January of every year, unless you have specifically indicated that inflation does not affect the income/expense when you created the definition (see the "add effect of inflation on top of annual growth" checkbox).

You can export all the scenario data to a web browser or a spreadsheet (so you are not locked in Budget4All !).

Developer comments

From my own experience, I have found that to efficiently manage a budget, it is much more useful to focus on forecasting the future incomes and expenses, instead of investing a lot of time entering past bills and looking at old financial data. I have written this application to reach that objective and I share it with you for free !